Judicial review ordered for Digital Economy Act

Piracy bill to be reappraised following Talk Talk and BT complaints

Controversial anti-piracy bill the Digital Economy Act is to be reviewed, following claims by ISPs such as BT and Talk Talk that it violated European stipulations on electronic privacy, and required internet providers to act as copyright enforcers.

A judicial review of the bill, which privacy groups claimed was unfairly rushed through at the end of the Labour government, has now been ordered.

The Guardian reports that the review was granted based on three of the ISP's four grounds of appeal, with the focus being on possible contravention of EU laws.

Music industry association the BPI has contested motions to rethink the bill. Said a spokesperson to The Guardian, "Parliament enacted the Digital Economy Act to encourage innovation on the internet and to protect jobs in the creative industries, which are a key area of growth for the economy.

"It's disappointing that a couple of ISPs are trying to frustrate this and resist any action being taken to reduce illegal filesharing on their networks."

The coalition government has hitherto refused to overturn the bill, despite promises to the contrary by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg in his election campaign.

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i dont think there are many people technologically inclined who agree with this act. i would rather that they caught up with technology instead bring in stuff that holds back innovation, which is basically the main argument.

I agree with both your comments and although I do not condone piracy I really think there has to be a better way of deterring file sharing than this bill. I believe the answer to piracy needs to be more innovative than the punitive system in place at the moment.. Its just not very realistic or practical (not to mention the legal stickiness of the whole issue: http://mashable.com/2010/03/16/file-shar... The problem is not just that people think they might be able to get away with file sharing, its that over the past 10 or 15 years a culture of piracy and open file-sharing seems to have become the status quo for many. I do not have a specific practical solution in mind but I do believe that it is better to give people incentive to share and purchase content Legally rather than to threaten to punish people for not doing so. . It is the underlying ethos behind piracy and file-sharing that needs to be tackled first and until it is there will always be people finding better ways of doing it and making it more freely available to the public...

I'm glad they've accepted that this was the wrong way to go about things, from what I know of it it was almost equivalent to having the government going through your bins to find anything Illegal you've ditched.

'The Act badly needs to be repealed and the issues revisited' said Nick Clegg sometime after it went through in the 'wash up'. It will be interesting to see what LibDems say now - they all voted against it at the time, but it was ushered through by Labour AND Conservatives in the last session of the last Parliament.